What Bill Gates Just Said Out Loud ‘Scares the Hell Out of Me’: Dan Bongino [WATCH]

Conservative commentator Dan Bongino raised concerns about the growth of digital identification systems and government data collection, citing remarks from Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates about India’s digital public infrastructure.

Bongino said technological expansion and government efficiency initiatives must be paired with safeguards.

“Here is a real problem. I can put my stamp of disapproval on the surveillance state and technology and how a new administration folks, at any time, remember, people or policy can implement this stuff. That’s why I always kind of like scoff when people go, Oh, you know, do you think you know you fixed the FBI folks? There’s no fixing human institutions. There’s putting in guardrails to prevent humans from doing human things and bad things. But the only fix is strong, rigorous guardrails and making sure other people don’t ditch them.”

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He added that expanding surveillance capabilities pose risks.

“The surveillance state scares the shit out of me. Here’s why. Here’s a clip of Bill Gates talking about, basically how in India and other countries, they’ve implemented these surveillance state measures for everything from like government benefits on and how this technology is going to make this really hard to escape from. In the future, think digital currencies, digital IDs. They’re going to know everything you do. You buy a gun with a digital currency and prevent it and present a digital ID. You don’t think the government’s going to be storing that somewhere you want them. Knowing that about you, I don’t check this out. Yeah, Bill Gates, sorry.”

Gates, speaking about India’s system, described what he called digital public infrastructure and its applications.

“Another place that India leads, but there’s a lot more that all of you can be involved in driving forward. Is this digital public infrastructure. You know, no country is more able to take government benefits and get them out efficiently and effectively to their citizens than India. You know, you would have expected rich countries or others to do that, but in fact, they did not. And so that basic structure that starts with identity and bank accounts and payments is is just foundational.”

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Gates said the system is expanding into other sectors.

“And as part of this visit, I’m now seeing how that foundation is being built out, built out in agriculture with profiles of farmers to understand what they need and give them advice, built out with health records so that we can help people, not only with infectious diseases, but the challenge that’s coming in the future, with the growth of the non communicable diseases being a huge thing, and that digital public infrastructure will help us with these climate problems.”

Bongino responded by saying the issue will grow in importance regardless of views about Gates.

“Listen, regardless of your feelings about Bill Gates, and I know many of them are strong justifiably so, the man is not kidding. This is going to be a big issue going forward, digital currencies and digital IDs. I really hope it’s not inevitable.”

He said he supports government efficiency but warned about data collection by private companies contracted by the government.

“The problem is, you’ve got this efficiency movement on the conservative right, which I understand, and I’m all for government efficiency, but I don’t want it to bleed into heavy tech interfaces, where tech companies wind up getting contracts with the government to make things, quote, more efficient that require you to give over more information they can use AI to analyze.”

Bongino said he believes expanded data requirements tied to government benefits could reduce privacy.

“Here’s what I mean with that. Information is basically going to destroy your privacy if you’re getting any government benefit in the future at all. You may say, Well, that’s not me, really. What about Social Security? That’s almost everyone I see this path, I hope, is not inevitable, that you’re going to be required to turn over a bunch of information to get those benefits, not just bank records and routing numbers, but other things that are going to be used later on to potentially track you in a situation.”

He concluded by expressing concern about how such systems could be used if political leadership changes.

“If the wrong people are in charge, and they wanted to aggregate data and find out who the supporters are, they’re going to know. Do you get what I’m saying government benefits? Well, give us this. You don’t give us this. No benefits. No benefits. That scares the hell out of me.”

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